Errors in the books

[pete9012S]

Good point Betsy's Bear!

We get almost the full picture in this 1991 illustration:



But the first edition has the lot!

[Betsy's Bear]

Thanks for posting the illustration Pete. Yes the older illustrations are much more accurate. They are one of the things that are so magical about Enid Blyton books.

[Daisy]

I'm reading the Secret Mountain at the moment and came across what I think must be a "Blyton blooper" - not noticed before in spite of reading it countless times since I was 10. In chapter 12 the children are separated when Jack and Mafumu are left outside the mountain while the others, with Ranni and Pilescu, are inside and eventually captured. Taken to a room where they are fed, Ranni says they should get some rest and "he covered up the THREE children with the rugs". Three? Which one did Enid forget? We have Peggy, Mike and Nora there but Paul as well. The illustration on that page of "everyone made a meal" shows the correct number though. Later on it says ""In spite of the tremendous excitement of the previous day the three children were soon asleep..."
I wonder if this was ever corrected in later editions?

[Fiona1986]

I'm sure I've never noticed that one before, Daisy!

I'm currently wondering when George changed her boat. I'm reading Five Fall Into Adventure and Julian, Dick and Jo take George's boat along the coast to find Red Tower's place. Suddenly her boat has a sail and tiller instead of just oars!

[Boatbuilder]

You can have 'rowing boats' that have removable masts and sails, etc., Fiona.

[pete9012S]

Fiona, I think it was the same boat throughout the series.
You probably know, but 'the tiller' was mentioned again five years later in Five Have Plenty Of Fun..

Rocks guarded the island, and the sea ran strongly over them, sending up spray and foam.
‘However are we going to get safely to the shore of the island?’ said Berta, rather alarmed at the array of fierce-looking rocks that guarded it.
‘There’s a little cove we always use,’ said George. She was at the tiller, and she steered the boat cleverly in and out of the rocks.

Yet, book 21 shows the boat without the tiller!!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Interesting about the "three children" mistake in The Secret Mountain, Daisy. I just checked my 1978 Armada paperback copy and the error is still there! I hadn't spotted it despite reading the book at least ten times!

[Fiona1986]

It's just odd that it's never mentioned in other books. In FOATI George says it's too far to row to the other side of the island to see the wreck and back, if the boat could have a sail at that point surely she would have used it?

I hadn't remembered that other mention of the tiller, Pete. That makes even less sense. George normally rows through the rocks and has to go very slowly and carefully to avoid scraping the bottom of the boat in places.

I've just realised it's nearly 11.30 - past my bed time. I'll come back to this puzzle tomorrow!

[Daisy]

In looking for another reference about Secret Mountain on the forum I find that the "mistake" about the three children when there should be four, was mentioned in the Secret Mountain readathon by Sunskriti just about 4 years ago in January 2016. I commented then. Slap on my wrist for not remembering!
I was actually looking for some reference to why the book has been banished .. as I noticed a phrase which I think would certainly be objected to these days... When Paul was chosen to be the sacrifice, he "stood proudly and looked the chief straight in the face." The others felt proud of him ... "The Baronian boy was behaving like an English one. Good!" I can imagine the reaction to that "imperialism" which is now rightly frowned upon, and guess that was dropped in later editions before the whole book was deemed unacceptable.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Ah yes - Sunskriti was reading a 2009 Award edition and the "three children" mistake still hadn't been corrected.

[IceMaiden]

I'm not sure if this is an error or not. In Hurrah For the Circus, on page 54, Fric is admiring Lucky's tricks and asks Jimmy how did he teach him to count and did he have him from a puppy, to which ?Jimmy responds 'he's not much more than a puppy now, I taught him everything he knows and he's naturally clever'. Now Fric is understandable saying 'he' as he doesn't know the dog, but surely Jimmy would put him right? Or is it intentional, Jimmy doesn't correct Fric as it doesn't matter?

[Courtenay]

I remember noticing in Hurrah for the Circus! when I first read it years ago — in a Dean edition — that there are two or three places where Lucky gets referred to as "he" despite being female. There's also a place where Lotta's horse Black Beauty is referred to as "she", despite being male! I now have an older (Newnes) edition and the same, er, mis-genderings are in there as well, so they must have been errors that were never corrected.

That said, Sooty in the Mr Pink-Whistle stories is sometimes a she and sometimes a he — not to mention the fact that, as we discovered a few years ago in reading Enid's Teacher's World letters of the 1930s, Enid's dog Sandy was referred to consistently as "he" until suddenly "she" had puppies!!! Then after those were out of the picture "she" reverted to a "he" again, so that was all rather confusing...

[GloomyGraham]

Merged with an existing topic.


All Blyton readers will have noticed errprs or unlikely repeats in some of her most-loved series:

FF - Alf or James, Kirrrin or Barnard & Joan/Joanna. How did Fanny Kirrin (nee ???) inherit Kirrin properties? (I like to think Fanny was a distant cousin of Quentin).
FFO - Bets asking what an 'anonymous letter was' when it had been clearly explained to her in an earlier story all about anonymous letters
ADV - Aunt Polly & Uncle retiring to a cottage they b ought with no money and Craggy Tops being unsellable
SS - The Seven only ever seemed to get fireworks from grateful police
RATIONING - no mention of it or its' effects on Britons from 1940 through to the mid-50s

Feel free to add more errors or unlikely trivia from any book. Probably most could have been fixed prior to first publication via a knowledgeable editor or assistant who Enid listened to.

But today I am wondering about the cat from the Barney mysteries where Sardine transitioned into Snoek. Tinned goods were a staple of Enid's stories from the early 1940s and sardines (which I hate lol) would have been a staple I guess.

After WWII ended, the British government imported tinned Snoek (a South African fish I think) into the UK to bolster shortages in meats and other fish types, but from what I have read it was hugely unpopular.

I wonder if when Enid was writing she thought 'what was their cat's name again? Oh that horrible tinned fish - snoek'.

I am not a big seafood fan - love my fish & chips but am allergic to shellfish. I think I was put off most other forms of fish from primary school lunches in England which featured 'boiled fish'. I can almost smelll the horrible aroma from the dinner hall half a century later.

[Barnard]

Fatty, on one occasion says to Larry, “I’m older than you, and wiser.”
He was wiser, but not older.

[GloomyGraham]

He was not older.

I think the Adventure series - when I last re-read it - also had me wondering if some ages had been jumbled.